Salt

“They are literally pictures of nothing, but nothing has never looked so good” Art Critic John McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald 19th February 2006.

Between the years of 2003 and 2010, Murray Fredericks made sixteen solo journeys to the featureless surface of Lake Eyre, a usually dry salt pan in the Australian Outback.

Immersed in ‘pure space’, Fredericks camped alone in the centre of the lake photographing a ‘landscape without landscape’ for up to five weeks at a time. The solitude, simplicity and repetition of the days, created an approach that was integral to the production of the images.

The photographs were produced on a traditional 8 x 10 film plate camera and exhibited as large digital pigment prints on cotton rag.

Documentary

SALT is the documentary film of the ‘Salt’ project that was commissioned by the ABC, Screen Australia, The Adelaide Film Festival and the PFTC. It has screened on the ABC, PBS in America, and played at over fifty festivals worldwide. ‘Salt’ was Murray Fredericks’s first film and cinematography credit and was directed and produced by Michael Angus.

SALT won many international awards including the ‘Golden Frog’ for Best Cinematography in a documentary at the CameraImage Film Festival, Jury Prize at Silverdocs/AFI/Discovery Channel, IDA Best Documentary Short, Best Australian Short Film at Melbourne International Film Festival and was nominated for two AFI Awards.